This WordPress plugin needs BuddyPress to work. There is no need to network activate it in WP Multisite. BuddyMenu displays to logged in visitors only.

Why BuddyMenu BuddyLinks

BuddyPress menus are dynamic. Their URLs change for each logged in user. This makes it difficult for most community admins and webmasters to add links to areas in their BuddyPress sites.

For example, unless you know how, you can’t create a welcome page and send new users to their profile page with a link in the welcome page because the link will be different for each user.

A link to a user’s own activity stream looks like http://example.com/members/[USERNAME]/activity/.

The [USERNAME] bit of the URL is added dynamically by BuddyPress. Without the BuddyLinks plugin, you’ll need to use pictures, videos, diagrams and lots of text to send people to different locations within your BP site. Being able to add the BuddyPress menu to your sidebar and other widget areas and being able to add BuddyPress links in page text will greatly enhance user experience.

BuddyMenu Widget

The BuddyMenu Widget displays the main BP menus items:

Activity

Forums

Groups

Friends

Messages

Profile

Edit Profile

Change Avatar

Settings

Button order is customizable and you can set custom links.

Main Features

Choose which BuddyPress profile links display.

Specify anchor text for each link.

Choose to display the menu as a vertical list.

Choose to show the menu as a horizontal bar.

Customize the links shown.

Add you own custom slugs and menu tabs.

Configure the display order of the links.

Each link has a customizable icon.

Set custom icons.

Displays to logged in users only. Logged out users do not see the menu.

As easy to use as going to Appearance > Widgets and dragging the BuddyMenu widget into a sidebar or any other widget area.

BuddyMenu Shortcode

BuddyMenu Shortcode displays the same 9 menu tabs as the BuddyMenu Widget but as a shortcode.

BuddyMenu can be put in any page or post. If you use Ultimate TinyMCE you can even put the shortcode in widgets.

The BuddyMenu Shortcode Features

Configurable menu titles, just like the widget.

Vertical and horizontal alignment.

Menu items can be switched off.

Icons and icon customizations

All the features of the widget but in a shortcode.

BuddyLinks Shortcode

BuddyLinks is for use within page and post content. Ideal for linking to user’s profiles, settings, personal activity streams and any other BuddyPress page from within a post.

For example, add a link to a new user’s ‘edit avatar’ page to your site’s welcome guide. Use the BuddyLinks shortcode to embed dynamic links within in page text.

BuddyLinks Features

In context BuddyPress linking.

Ease of use.

Link title and link anchor configuration.

Quick links to each of the 9 pages found in BuddyMenus.

Configurable text for logged out visitors – tell them to login to follow the link or make the text non-clickable.

Option to display icons or not. The default action is to not display icons.

Installation

Use the WordPress Add New Plugins menu otherwise…

Download the zip file from WordPress.org.

Upload the BuddyMenu file to /wp-content/plugins/

Extract the zip file.

Activate the plugin through the WordPress plugins page.

Go to Appearance > Widgets to place the BuddyMenu Widget in a sidebar.

BuddyMenu, BuddyMENU Shortcode and BuddyLink output in a WordPress page

BuddyPress BuddyMenu Widget and its options

BuddyMenu Shortcode in a text widget on a BuddyPress WPML site on a WordPress Multisite

BuddyLink shortcodes being used in TinyMCE running Ultimate TinyMCE and Visual Bakery Compozer

BuddyMenu Widget

Configure the menus to display, their titles and whether to display horizontally or vertically.

This menu is only visible to logged in users.

BuddyMenu Shortcode

BuddyMenu Shortcode displays a vertical or horizontal menu. You can change the anchor text of each menu tab. The link title tooltip will always be the same as the anchor text. Any of the menu tabs can be disabled. This menu is not visible to visitors who are not logged in.

Enter the shortcode in any page, post or widget area (if you are set up to use shortcodes in widget areas).

The shortcode for the menu is:

[buddymenu]

The options/attributes are:

bmact=”” to change the activity tab

bmfor=”” to change the forum tab

bmfri=”” to change the friends tab

bmmsg=”” to change the messages tab

bmpro=”” to change the profile tab

bmedpro=”” to change the edit profile tab

bmchav=”” to change the change avatar tab

bmset=”” to change the settings tab

bmlay=”” to change the layout from horizontal to vertical

If no option is set, the full menu is displayed as a horizontal row.

Setting any option to -1 will disable that option’s menu item.

Any text entered within the quotes of an option will become the link anchor text and the link title for that option’s menu item.

For example,

To show the full menu horizontally:

[buddymenu]

To show the full menu as a vertical list:

[buddymenu bmlay=”vertical”]

To show the menu without the activity tab:

[buddymenu bmact=”-1″]

To show the menu with the message tab text changed to Inbox:

[buddymenu bmmsg=”Inbox”]

To show a horizontal menu with the settings tab changed to Configs:

[buddymenu bmset=”Configs” bmlay=”horizontal”]

This menu is very useful in horizontal widget areas in multilingual environments.

The icon attributes do not need to be used but if you wish to use them they are:

bmacti=”” sets the activity icon.

bmfori=”” sets the forum icon.

bmfrii=”” sets the friends icon.

bmmsgi=”” sets the messages icon.

bmproi=”” sets the profile icon.

bmedproi=”” sets the edit profile icon.

bmchavi=”” sets the change avatar icon.

bmseti=”” sets the settings icon.

bmicons=”0″ Disables all icons.

Put the URL to any image into a link icon attribute to use that image as the icon for that link.

For example,

Disables all icons:

[buddymenu bmicons=”0″]

Replace the default activity icon with the image at http://example.com/icon.png:

[buddymenu bmacti=”http://example.com/icon.png”]

BuddyLinks

The BuddyLinks shortcode provides a stub URL that is dynamically generated by BuddyPress. This URL looks like http://example.com/members/[USERNAME]/. You need to use the bllink=”” option to set the path that follows the username.

This shortcode is good for linking to pages within your network from within the text of your pages and posts.

None logged in users see the text “login to view this link” which links to the WordPress login page. This text link is configurable.

BuddyMenu has four main options/attributes:

bllink=”” sets the link

bltitle=”” sets the tooltip title

bltext=”” sets the anchor text that users click

blicon=”” sets the icon link

If you provide no attributes, the shortcode returns a link to a user’s profile page with the anchor text “your profile” and no tool-tip title.

blicon=”” can be used to display a custom icon or an icon from the plugin’s default icon set. Accepted values are activity, friends, messages, profile, edit-profile, avatar and settings or any image URL. No icon will show if this attribute is not used.

For example,

To link to a logged in user’s activity page:

[buddylink bllink=”activity” bltext=”your activity page”]

To link to a logged in user’s message inbox:

[buddylink bllink=”messages/inbox” bltext=”view your inbox”]

To link to a logged in user’s message inbox with an icon accompanying the link:

Fantastic, just what I’ve been looking for. You have a new fan and a new customer. Any reason why the images aren’t showing in the widget? The files are uploaded in the correct img directory on the server but they don’t seem to be showing. I’m using Chrome.

I’ve issued a fix for the forum link but I need a link to your site so I can see the source code and fix the icons not displaying issue.

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6 years ago

Ben Dixon

Hi Lee this is also FlipFlop from WP forum just so you aren’t pursuing me in two places. Can you drop me an email benjamesdixon [at] gmail [d0t] com please and I’ll send you my site along with some login details so you can see the menu. I’ve updated just now and Forums is indeed fixed but still no icons in both Chrome and Firefox. Cheers mate!

I’m really excited to use this plugin, I’ve tried downloading both from the wordpress site and uploading directly. However, I keep getting a “The package could not be installed. No valid plugins were found.” attribute any ideas how to fix that problem? Thanks!

I tried both. Directly from wordpress.org I got the error. Trying to use the “upload zip” in the plugins installer, I got the same error. The cpanel worked, but only after moving the extracted files around (not difficult).

That’s odd. The plugin executable file is under the directory /BuddyMenu-BuddyLinks/. It installs there and runs from there. Will run a few tests. Have you had similar issues with other plugins or is there anything unique about your installation?

I am sorry for my delayed responses. Had to rebuild a theme for a client’s BuddyPress site.

Just noticed this after coming back here for some short codes. I haven’t had any other problems with any other plugins. However, on a second site I was working on a week later the install worked perfectly.

The widget allows you to set visibility to different user roles i.e whether it displays only to people who are logged into the site, people who are not logged into the site or or both. The widget also lets you set visibility to each menu item individually.

I’m not sure what you mean by the second question. Every menu item has the same set of options.

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5 years ago

onafete

I think there is a bug in “show avatar”
the result is: avatar image “/>

How would you put the menu in the left side of your site to show on every page for only logged in users? I have tried to put the menu in the home-left side bar widget area, it just does not show. Would you have to create a dynamic left side bar? If so could you recommend on how to do so?

There is a BuddyPress function for defining the avatar size but CSS will probably suit you better.

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5 years ago

cici

i like this plugin, but i find i need more than 12 option slots. I wish there was a way to add more menu/link options besides 12. I also wish there was an easier way to re arrange the links. I find for example, that i set my links 1-10, but want to add a link at the #3 spot…..i have to go through and change all slots just to do it.

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5 years ago

onafets

I wonder if there is the way to get the link of the author post.
In my case the portfolio author, as I have taxonomies

This plugin is awesome, so happy to have found it! I am using Shortcode to insert the change avatar link on a page, and although I have set blotext=”my text”, the default “change avatar” still prints. How do I get the text to set per my shortcode? Here’s the shortcode in full:

I would love to be able to create a profile menu for “my posts” that would link to an author’s blog posts. Is there any way to do that with BuddyMenu? (I have investigated TCH Posts on Profile – which I can’t make work, and BuddyDev’s BuddyBlog, as well as Social Articles – neither of which is quite what I’m looking for.)
Thanks in advance!
Adam

Hi Adam, do you need a way to link to blog author posts or any author’s posts such as comments within BuddyPress etc..? To link to a blog author’s posts you can create a custom menu item that links to an author’s (post) archive page. It could be done dynamically if needed.

Hi Chris. I haven’t added the option to use a custom image for the profile link in the menu widget. You should be able to use the shortcode for this. I am a little pushed for time today but will provide an example here in a few days.

Firstly thanks for the great widget, is what just what I was looking for. I have two questions. 1. Firstly is it possible to get alert notifications with the menu. In the original BP menu I get a number icon next to each tag telling me how many messages I have or how much media I have, is this possible with this to have this function or maybe I have not set it up correctly. 2. Secondly I have a line of code that I am using in the original BP menu that when I click a menu link the… Read more »

Hi Allan. Are you using BuddyPress 1.9? BP 1.9 has new notification widgets and the option to add BP pages into WordPress custom menus.

When you visit Appearance > Menus in the WordPress dashboard, click “Screen Options” at top right of the screen. The BP menu items option needs to be enabled in screen options before you can add BP menu items to a custom menu.

Hi,
I know I’ve posted this comment before, I would like to know if it’s possible to get a number notification on the buddymenu like you do on the default buddypress menu. I would really like to use only the buddymenu on my site as I think it has so much flexibility but I need it have the facility to show the notifications. If it doesn’t, is it possible to have this feature in an update.

If you would like more details I’d be happy to get in touch and explain in more detail.

Hell Allan, BuddyPress 1.9.1 integrates with the WordPress custom menu system. There is a “notifications” menu item. I don’t know whether it displays the number notification of notifications but it could be worth testing. You might not immediately see the BuddyPress custom menu items under Appearance > Menus. If they are not there, look at the top-right of the screen and you will see a “Screen Options” tab. Click that tab and configure which items you would like displayed. Let me know how you get on. If it doesn’t work I will look into adding the notifications bubble into the… Read more »

I am sorry to bother you as I am sure you are a busy man but is there any chance of that notifications update?

Thanks,

Allan

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4 years ago

Dee

Hello, Great plugin by the way. I wanted to know if there’s a way to use my buddypress as my logout option instead of wordpress. When a person logs out I would like to show my buddypress site not the white plain wordpress site. Thanks in advance. -Dee

Allan, when get a round to it, adding the bubble will take me maybe 20 minutes to do, I’ve just not had the time do make the upgrade. Let me see whether I can get to it this weekend. I can’t promise anything. There’s no need to donate but I do appreciate the offer :)

Thanks Lee for getting back to me, I really appreciate you doing this.

Allan

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5 years ago

Felipe

Great, i’m testing this in a new community. Looks great and exactly what buddypress needs

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5 years ago

Ben

Hello,
i use buddydrive an it works verry good, but i need to display the username or nick by the side of the avatar. Can you help me? Thx

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4 years ago

Laura Lee

Thank you so much, Lee. I just installed this and am trying to learn how to use it. (I am in process of original setup of a website.) I wanted to use this to list all of the menu items as quick links on a page. I have added the optional “Send Invites” to my site by, I guess, the “Invite Anyone” plug-in. So, it is a menu item that is not standard. I am wondering if there is a way for me to add that optional menu item “Send Invites” to the [buddymenu] shortcode so it appears on the… Read more »

Might require quite a bit of code to do as you ask. I don’t have time to support the plugin at the moment. Please feel free to edit or chop and change the plugin as needed. If I get time I will take a look but I’m not likely to have any spare time during the next few months.

Thank you. This is a great plugin! I’m trying to figure out how to use it to link to sitewide content such as forums and groups at the root level. I’m not very familiar with plugin development; so, I’m having a tough time figuring out how to edit it to have an option for a buddypress link that does not follow the username; but, rather, follows the root address, such as localhost.com/buddypress/forums.

How do I get custom url’s to open in a new window (target=”_blank”)
Thank you in advance
Nico

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4 years ago

Gregory

Hello! Thanks for the Nice Plugin.
How can I use the Dynamic Custom link?
I need to create a custom link to fetch a dynamic page. The Dynamic field is the [user_name]
Something like http://domain.com/subscriber/%5Buser_name%5D

TIA for your time and help.
Look forward to your reply.

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4 years ago

Dan

In the documents above, regarding BuddyLinks links short code, you have a code example: “[buddylink bmlink=”activity” bltext=”your activity page”]”. In that example, you have used “bmlink” instead of “bllink” … Please, for the love of god, please correct this before more innocent lives are lost to the mass suicides of developers trying to make that code example work with the wrong option/attribute. I’ve just climbed back into the window myself. Thank you.

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4 years ago

Michelle

OMG thank you!! I was SO confused until I stumbled across this comment! Can’t believe it’s still wrong after 3 years lol